


this slow slide into a half-baked dream

by Tassos



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Background Relationships, F/M, First Time, Post-Season/Series 02, Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-10
Updated: 2015-10-10
Packaged: 2018-04-25 16:26:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,656
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4968001
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tassos/pseuds/Tassos
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I had you, Jake was gone, supplies were low. Menopause was supposed to be starting any day now. When I was due for my next IUD I skipped it." Abby was the chief doctor. It was within her rights to make those kinds of decisions, and she'd never thought -- well, that's the point of birth control, isn't it? For those moments when you're not thinking.</p>
            </blockquote>





	this slow slide into a half-baked dream

**Author's Note:**

> This started out as crack!fic then morphed into something else. I'm not sure what happened really.
> 
> Written for thehundredrarepairs.

Abby can't believe this is happening. She stares at Clarke, unable to process. This isn't supposed to be happening. This _can't_ be happening.

"Mom?" Clarke says, he brow furrowing in concern. "Mom, please say something. You're freaking me out."

"I . . ." Abby used to know how to form words, but that ability has gone right out the airlock. She stares at Clarke some more, then at a bench of supplies behind her and the wide plastic curtains that separate them from the rest of the medical tent. "I have a stomach bug or a fever or . . ."

"You don't have a fever," Clarke says, surprisingly patient with her. When Abby had shown up for her shift with a headache and a queasy stomach from breakfast, she'd thought it would go away soon enough, the way it had yesterday. They didn't have medication for much these days. Standard treatment for sickness was rest and plenty of water until it passed.

"I can't be pregnant," Abby says.

"Mom -"

"I _can't_ ," Abby repeats.

"So what you and Marcus have been getting up to at night has been one hundred percent 'let's be friends?'" Her daughter raises both her eyebrows at her and, god, her _daughter_ is the one telling her this and making sex jokes that Abby can not deal with right now.

"Clarke -"

"Mom," Clarke interrupts firmly, with an expression on her face that Abby despises. It's her I'm-in-charge face that doesn't listen to anyone, least of all Abby.

"Mom. You literally have every single classic symptom. You said it yourself that you're two weeks late."

"That was before I knew why you were asking!"

"Me asking doesn't change the fact!"

"It could just be a fluke," Abby says, deeply regretting the fact that they'd been low on the chemicals they need to verify pregnancy even before they lost most of their supplies coming down to Earth.

"Are you still on birth control?" Clarke asks, which is too surreal for a moment because she's pretty sure when this conversation was supposed to happen, she and Clarke were supposed to be in opposite roles.

But the question forces the uncomfortable truth. "No." Abby closes her eyes, and feels the possibility settle around her.

When she opens them, Clarke is still regarding her with that little furrow in her brow that she gets when she's worried.

"I had you, Jake was gone, supplies were low. Menopause was supposed to be starting any day now. When I was due for my next IUD I skipped it." She was the chief doctor. It was within her rights to make those kinds of decisions, and she'd never thought -- well, that's the point of birth control, isn't it? For those moments when you're not thinking.

Clarke nods, and Abby has never been so embarrassed in front of her daughter in her life. She takes a deep breath, then another, trying to get herself under control.

"So," Clarke glances down and away, giving her space. "I know you know your options. We'll have to tell Jackson if you want to terminate -- I never got far enough to learn that. But, you know, we're on the ground now, so . . ."

It takes a moment for what Clarke's saying to sink in. They're on the ground now. Abortion is an _option_ , not the law. Abby can _choose_.

The weight of _that_ settles between them long enough for Clarke to reach out and squeeze her hand before saying, "I'll give you a minute." 

She leaves through the curtain into the other half of the tent -- empty because after Abby had upchucked breakfast, Clarke had waited until she'd finished with the only patient they had that morning before forcing Abby to sit down for a quick check-up.

So Abby sits on the table for a minute, trying and failing to think, and then she scoots off because this is ridiculous.

"Mom," Clarke says, when Abby pushes through the plastic curtain, but Abby brushes her off as she finds her gloves and hat. The tent isn't much warmer than outside, but the make-shift braziers do keep the temperatures above freezing.

"I'm just going for a walk, Clarke," Abby says as reasonably as she can. Clarke's got that look in her eye again, and something else that looks a lot like hope. It's been a long time since Abby's seen that on her daughter's face. "I love you."

"I love you, too."

Abby nods and pushes out into the brisk winter wind.

~*~

After they'd gotten back from Mount Weather, Jackson had taken Abby and Raven into the medical tent, and Marcus and Wick had followed. They had no anesthesia, no antibiotics. Abby had talked Jackson through patching up Raven, even though he didn't need the guidance, but it kept her mind off of her own pain and the fact that she was next.

Marcus had bruises on his hand afterward. He never let go of hers. Not when they listened to Raven scream, not when it was Abby's turn and she thought she was ready but she really really wasn't.

Thankfully, she'd passed out before it was over.

When she woke up Clarke was gone; it was after dark and Bellamy came to tell her himself that first night in a few short words while Marcus slept on the crates that served as a chair. His voice had been steady, though he never really met her gaze. Once, Abby might have asked a thousand questions of him, but it was late, Bellamy was exhausted, and Abby knew all the answers already. Clarke had always hated doing less than perfect whether it was in school or in her apprenticeship. She held her failures close to her heart and silence always followed.

So Abby closed her eyes and held in her tears till Bellamy left.

Marcus was there when she woke up that morning. He squeezed her hand and they hadn't needed to say anything. He barely left her side through the first few days afterward when Abby mostly slept. She would wake and he and Sinclair would be talking quietly. Or Bellamy would be there reporting in -- and one time arguing so loudly that Jackson threw him out.

But Marcus never left. He ran the camp from her bedside till she was stable enough to move back into the tiny room on Alpha that Abby had claimed as hers. And then he'd moved in with her.

~*~

Abby doesn't know where she's going, she just knows that she needs to gets some air, and there's plenty of it here on Earth.

Outside, snow from the last storm lies on the ground. Slushy pathways have been carved through the five inches, but the untouched stuff is still pretty. If it weren't so cold, Abby might like it better, but the wind cuts through her jacket and she tucks her hands under her armpits to keep them warm as she heads toward the fence.

Her stomach churns, but she doesn't know if it's left over morning sickness or queasiness from the morning's -- possible -- revelation. Her symptoms could still be something else, she tells herself. But deep down she's pretty sure Clarke's right. She's been down this road before. She's two weeks late, and if stress hadn't killed her menstrual cycle so far, she doubts it'd be gone now without an alternate reason.

The slight rise in the ground near the fence gives them a good view of the fields and forest beyond. The sun hasn't broken through the clouds in nearly a week so the fence isn't electrified right now. They haven't had anything but grudging contact with the grounders since Mount Weather, but the Guard still patrols, keeping an eye out for any trouble. A couple work crews are busy in the woods, felling trees for buildings. Marcus is out with them today, pulling his weight with hard labor like everyone else. With winter, they've all had to pitch in on the hundreds of little jobs that needed doing to make sure everyone has enough food and warmth to make it till spring.

And, as Bellamy had so forcefully pointed out at that fateful council meeting a few months ago, they couldn't hold themselves apart from their people and expect everyone to keep following them. Abby wonders sometimes how close he was to walking and taking half the camp with him.

~*~

"Marcus," she'd said when he showed up at her door.

"I gave my room up to a group of the kids. I was wondering if I could stay with you for the night." 

Abby saw through his earnestness straight-away. "Jackson told you to keep an eye on me," she said, narrowing her eyes.

Marcus didn't try to hide the smile that spread across his face. "He might have mentioned you should be staying off your leg."

"You can't keep babying me, you know," Abby said. "I'm the Chancellor. I'm going to be out there tomorrow." She pointed out the door toward the rest of camp and raised her eyebrow to see if he was going to challenge her on it.

"Then I'll make sure you have a chair," he said, reasonably, which was probably the only answer she would have accepted and not thrown him out after -- and he knew it. So she let him in and accepted his hand under her elbow when he helped her limp back to the pallet in the corner.

If she were honest, Abby was grateful for the company. It was a tight fit for the two of them. None of Alpha's living quarters had survived after the crash so Abby had claimed what had once been an electronics storeroom. Wick and Sinclair had cleared everything useful out during their first few days on the ground, so while not roomy it at least had space for both of them on the blankets piled on the floor. Which was hard and uncomfortable and kept Abby awake far longer than her tired brain could stand.

Marcus was a few scant inches away from her. She didn't know if he snored or not. He was quiet now, but she was certain he wasn't asleep, so she asked, "How are the kids doing?"

He took a breath and let it out in a long sigh. "They're tough kids. And they've been through a lot."

"Too much," Abby said softly. She found Marcus's hand near hers, and he squeezed her hand back.

"She's all right," he said.

"If she were all right she wouldn't have left."

"She will be. She'll come back."

Abby held onto the quiet faith in his voice. "How many of them have parents who survived?" she asked to change the subject.

"A dozen maybe," Marcus said. "Bellamy has been herding the rest. Hovered over Lynn Sinclair's shoulder while she found everyone a space to sleep until they were all settled."

It surprised her a little. Abby knew Bellamy had pushed and pushed to find the missing kids at every turn, but for some reason it never sank in how much he cared. First, she armed Finn to go after them, then it was Clarke defying her, then Clarke sent Bellamy into the mountain in a plan Abby barely knew about before it was happening. She supposed in her mind, Bellamy had remained the boy who was manipulated into shooting Thelonius.

Now she said, "I think he took Clarke's leaving hard," remembering the expression on his face when he'd told her.

Marcus squeezed her hand again, hearing what she was saying underneath. Abby held on. Eventually she fell asleep.

~*~

Abby loses track of time watching the group in the woods. At this distance, she can't see faces very well, but Marcus's shaggy mane of hair is easy enough to pick out when he pauses to give instructions. Half the group is crawling over the tree they just felled to hack off the branches. The other half heads back into the trees.

Marcus isn't wearing his hat or coat, and Abby can't help the flash of annoyance for that because she told him this morning that he'd get frostbite if he keeps doing that. She's already treated more cases than she cares to think about since the first snow storm, and she lives in dread of seeing collapsing boots and unprotected fingers.

He pauses once everyone's moving, turning his head to check in with the Guards on duty. As he's scanning, he catches sight of her on the hill and raises one hand in a quick wave. 

Abby can't see his smile, but she imagines it's there and can't help smiling back, waving in return.

He's going to think something's wrong the way she's standing here -- and part of her says something is wrong -- but she doesn't care. She shakes her head, and he seems to accept that as an all clear and goes back to work.

Abby should go back to work, too, if not at the medical tent then making house calls or opening up office hours in the mess area. Anything to keep her mind occupied and off the looming conversation she knows she needs to have as soon as Marcus returns.

She has no idea how he will react. With Jake it had been easy. They'd been approved to have a child and been trying for months. Clarke was a blessing, and Jake had been looking over Abby's shoulder and by her side the whole way.

Callie was the closest Marcus had ever come to settling down, and they had only lasted a couple years before she'd broken it off. She'd told Abby, when talking herself into it and consoling herself afterwards, that she wanted more than Marcus was willing to give -- she wanted to be a priority to him. She'd never mentioned kids; Callie had always been on the fence and Abby wasn't surprised when she brushed it off as a reason. But Abby wondered.

Marcus has changed so much since then. They all have.

She watches for a few more minutes, then forces herself to move on around the perimeter, as much to keep warm as to distract herself.

Camp Jaha has changed a lot in the past few months. With the kids back, they have nearly two hundred people crammed into every spare nook and cranny of Alpha. Tents and shelters have been erected from the rubble, as well as a single shoddy looking building. Their first attempts at houses have been a trial. The first several collapsed, and the one they have standing now is drafty and not water proof yet. The kitchen and mess area have been their biggest successes. Made from scrap metal, a dedicated team has taken to experimenting with the local plant life they can find. Now they just needed game to hunt. Lincoln led their hunting parties, but this deep into winter, and it was getting harder and harder to find enough food for the whole camp on a regular basis. They were down to the deer they'd hunted before the snows fell.

After a lifetime of eating soy pellets and the same handful of vegetables, Abby hadn't been prepared for meat. Abby wonders what a pregnancy diet on Earth should be. On the Ark they'd had hundred year-old texts that told them of foods to avoid and foods to consume that they didn't have -- spaceflight had still been a mission for most countries in 2052, five years max on rotations for the people testing the genetic engineering to make space survivable for the human race. The genetic modifications had worked, but on the Ark, pregnancy had always been a risk. If she goes through with it, Abby would be the first of their people to test it out on the ground.

The thought is terrifying. She dreads to think about any sort of complication that might come up. She's forty-two. The odds of complications are higher. And complications down here mean risking her life.

Abby knows the smart answer, the safe answer. Her people need her alive. She's their Chancellor. And she needs to train a new generation of doctors because only she and Jackson survived the trip to Earth and Clarke is still learning. How can she do all that with a baby?

She's never thought about having a second child. Never once. Except for maybe a couple moments when Clarke was a toddler, running around, just before she started school, and Abby thought, if things were different. But they weren't so she put those thoughts away.

Now things are different. But she's nearly twenty years older and nothing is safer.

And it's not just about what she wants.

~*~

Marcus indeed got her a chair. He set her up in the mess area with a table too, and one of the handful of tablets that survived the crash landing.

"I told Sinclair to have all the team leaders stop by to update you," he said, settling into the seat beside her. "Our most pressing concern is winter, which is going to be here soon. We should also take a look at our supplies and think about seeing what we can scavenge from Mount Weather."

Abby gave him a sharp look. 

"We have to at least talk about it," Marcus said. He was right, and Abby knew it. That didn't mean she had to like it.

It was a topic that could wait, however. Lynn Sinclair was the first to arrive with a report on housing, or rather, the lack of it, followed by Kim Wei with the supplies report, Lauriette Hampton on consumables, and David Miller with the report on camp defenses. That got them through lunch, which after hearing about where they were with their food stores, Abby wasn't too keen on eating.

Marcus set a bowl of stew in front of her anyway. 

"Don't look at me like that," Abby told him.

"Like what?" Marcus retook his chair beside her, playing innocent.

"Like me when I'm trying to get people to eat for their own good."

Marcus raised his hands, abdicating responsibility for her words. "You said it, not me. I happen to agree with you . . . "

Abby tried not to smile, but it was no use with him teasing her. After such a dour morning, the smile felt good, and the answering one across Marcus's face felt even better.

By mutual unspoken agreement they didn't talk about business while they ate. Abby, for her part, needed the break. They had a lot of decisions ahead of them, and none of them were going to be easy. Marcus looked tired. He hadn't shaved again, and his stubble was darkening his cheeks to the point where Abby wondered if he was going to grow a beard. She wasn't sure it would look good on him.

"Yes?" Marcus asked, when he caught her staring.

"Nothing," Abby said. "Just trying to imagine your face with hair on it."

He rubbed his chin, a contemplative frown crossing his brow before he shrugged. "The knife I was using to shave was taken by the soldiers when we were captured at Mount Weather. I didn't think to look for it when we left."

"That's something we'll have to worry about now," Abby said. "Personal hygiene," she clarified off of Marcus's questioning expression. "In the grand scheme of surviving it's fairly trivial, but if we want to survive long-term we're going to have to make sure we have fresh water, clean spaces, soap. I don't even know how were supposed to make soap on the ground."

"Animal fat," Marcus said confidently. "Not that I know how, but I'm sure our bright chemists can figure something out."

"Soap, medicines, tools -"

"Hey." Marcus placed his free hand on hers, warm and reassuring. "We'll figure it out."

It was a daunting thought, one that Abby pushed aside as they finished eating their lunch. But as their meetings into the afternoon continued, his quiet words were the ones Abby kept repeating in her head, over and over. They'd figure out answers to all the problems that lay ahead. They had to.

~*~

Abby busies herself with small, useful and forgettable tasks within sight of the gate, and as soon as the work party gets back, drops the sorting she's been doing and goes to meet them. Marcus's eyes find hers even as he waits for the stragglers to proceed him inside, signaling the all clear absently to the two Guards on duty.

He ambles over, not quite a frown on his face, but worried. Normally she'd still be in the medical tent or out overseeing other things and he'd come find her after he'd cleaned up. His cheeks are red and his face is shiny with perspiration, despite the chill air.

"Chancellor," he says, and the address is as much a question of whether her presence is business or not.

Unfortunately Abby can't even muster up a smile to reassure him. It would feel too much like lying and they stopped doing that with each other months ago.

"I need to talk to you. Privately," she says, casting a glance around the busy camp. "It's . . ." She almost says not bad, but goes with "personal."

"Abby, are you all right?" Now he is worried. Marcus steps closer, one hand coming up to lightly touch her elbow. They're not very demonstrative in public, but since he held her hand on the way back from Mount Weather, they don't exactly hide how they feel about each other either. At the moment, Abby wishes they were the type of people that could fling themselves together for no good reason without worrying the rest of camp, but she doesn't want to cause a scene. She doesn't want rumors, not before she has -- they have -- a chance to think.

Abby nods and this time manages the smile. "We just need to talk. Come on."

They go inside Alpha to the hallway that leads to the airlock hallway where they have the new council meeting space now that they've started using the Ark's original council room for additional housing. The airlock has no functional use, and is nothing but bad memories for their people. Instead the hallway serves as storage for their new supplies and food stores that they scavenged from Mount Weather, and the council gathers in chairs around a table made from scrap metal. 

Abby paces from one side to the other, while Marcus stops at the chairs, worried and confused now. But he's patient and simply watches her while she gathers her thoughts. Coming here, where Jake died, was a mistake, she thinks, staring at the airlock doors. She nearly died here too.

"Abby?" Marcus prompts, bringing her back to the here and now. "What's going on?"

She turns to face him, and sees a man so completely different than the one who oversaw Jake's execution and nearly her own. He's still flushed from working outside, and now that he's no longer moving the cold is catching up to him. He should have taken his coat with him.

"I threw up breakfast again this morning," she starts, holding up a hand when Marcus immediately steps forward and opens his mouth. 

"I'm fine," Abby forestalls the immediate questions, and this time the reassuring smile comes a little easier. "I went through my symptoms with Clarke, and she thinks I'm pregnant."

At first Marcus doesn't react. "Pregnant," he repeats slowly.

"She might not be wrong. It's possible," Abby admits. She's watching him closely and sees the exact moment it sinks in. Marcus's shoulders slump, his whole face seems to flutter as he blinks rapidly, trying to process the news.

"Pregnant," he says again, but this time he sounds bewildered.

It'd almost be cute if it wasn't so serious. "What are you thinking?" she asks.

"I don't know what to think," he replies, running his hands through his hair. "That certainly wasn't what I expected you to say. I thought you were going to tell me you were sick or dying or that you no longer wanted . . ." He waved his hand back and forth between them. They'd never defined their relationship much beyond Abby clarifying that she wanted him to continue sharing living quarters with her. Sometimes it felt like convenience, shared comfort. Sometimes it felt like love. Mostly it felt solid, one of the few things on the ground that did.

Marcus's hands end up on his hips. He still has a little of that wild look in his eye. "What are you thinking?" he asks in return, which startles a laugh out of Abby. There's not much humor in it, but it feels like all the pent up tension of the last two hours finally has an outlet. 

"Hell if I know," she says, trying to name the feelings knotted up in her chest. The laughter is quickly swinging to the prickle of tears in the corners of her eyes, so fast that Abby feels it shake her to her core. She stiffens, trying to hold it together. She really doesn't want to break down right now.

"It's not exactly what I was expecting either," she says, the crack in her voice betraying her. It's enough to break through Marcus's worry, his attention shifting to her. 

"Hey." He takes two steps and gathers her up in his arms.

Abby turns so her head is hidden where his neck joins his shoulder, taking comfort in his strength wrapped around her. He's solid, and that's the important thing.

"We'll figure this out, won't we?" she says, feeling more like a teenager than she has in ages.

"Yes." Marcus presses a kiss to her hair. "We'll figure it out together."

~*~

By the second week, running the camp fell into enough of a routine that Abby finally felt that she could take a minute at the end of the day to not think about anything. Just sit by a fire, stare into the flames, and let her mind wander. It had been a long stressful day that had gone utterly to hell when Nora Panderson had discovered three boys missing. The whole camp had dropped everything to search for them, and fortunately they hadn't made it very far into the woods. But it was an afternoon Abby didn't want to repeat.

Marcus dragged a chair over and sat beside her. He had two aluminum mugs held in one hand, and offered one to her when she glanced over. She could smell the alcohol fumes from arm's length.

"Has it gotten any better?" she asked him.

Marcus snorted. He took a sip and barely contained his face at the taste. "No."

Abby sipped hers, and shook her head when her sinuses and throat both burned. 

"Someone has to be making better stuff by now," she said. 

Marcus shrugged. "If they are, they aren't sharing it with us." 

"I suppose we have to take what we can get. It's better than soy alcohol."

"That stuff was disgusting." He shuddered at the memory.

Abby smiled. That was one law that the Council had always turned a blind eye to so long as people were discreet. Down here as long as drinking didn't interfere with people's duties it wasn't even against the law. One more difference with how everything had changed on the ground.

"I never would have pegged you for a drinker," she said.

"I wasn't. But everyone has to try it once, right?" Marcus shrugged. "I was actually a cadet the first time. We thought we were daring, breaking the law we were supposed to be enforcing."

"We used to sneak part of the ration that was for sterilizing equipment in Medical," Abby confessed with a smile. "We thought we were such rebels."

"Who knew we'd end up breaking all the rules and making new ones," Marcus said gesturing around them at the ground. They were a generation early after all.

"What worries me more is what the teenagers here now will do to rebel," Abby said, which had Marcus turning to regard her, the firelight making his face hard to read.

"You mean like overthrowing the elected government and waging war against our new neighbors?" he asked pointedly, and all right, Abby had to give him that.

"Fine. Present battle-hardened youth excepted," Abby conceded with a wry twist to her mouth. "They're already difficult enough when we have more or less the same goals. I guess after catching the gaggle of ten-year-olds sneaking out, I'm worried about what the younger kids are going to think up next to get past the fence. We don't even know half the dangers that are out here. And I know," she cut him off before he could point out the obvious. "I know we can't protect them forever. We can't hide behind our fence forever."

"It'd be nice if we could," Marcus said lightly, looking away from the fire and up at the stars. "It scares me too, you know, what we don't know about our own planet. We spent all that time watching and monitoring the Earth, and now we're here and it might as well be an alien world."

"I think in this instance, we're the aliens," Abby said following his gaze. The stars were still familiar, distant and steady. "Do you think it'll ever feel like home down here?"

Marcus's eyes fell to her, and Abby feeling their weight, met them. He was still difficult to read in the light, but his face seemed soft. 

"The kids have already forgotten the Ark," he said, shrugging. "I think I only care that the people I care about are safe." The corner of his mouth turned up in a way that made Abby want to smile back. They were skirting the edges of a conversation they should probably be having. But she didn't want to break the moment. Abby sat back in her hard uncomfortable chair instead, Marcus followed her lead, and they sat and watched the stars until the fire burned down.

~*~

Neither one of them know how to start this conversation. By mutual agreement, they sleep on it, awkwardly dodging the subject through a quiet, restless night. Laying on their pallet, knowing Marcus is awake beside her, wondering what he's thinking -- wondering what she is thinking -- Abby wakes with raspy eyes and a fuzzy head.

Now they're outside in the cold sunshine by the perimeter, ostensibly checking the fence line. Really it's the only way to get some distance from eavesdroppers, intentional or not. The morning chill has Abby pulling her jacket close and crossing her arms around herself. She's already heaved up once, and decided to give it another half an hour before trying breakfast.

"Should I start?" she asks, needing to break the silence. She feels more grounded this morning, despite the lack of sleep. More like herself. More like a doctor.

When Marcus cants his head toward her, she takes it as an indication to continue. "We've got two options here," she says. "One, I abort. I'll have to talk Jackson through it. He's been trained but he hasn't done the procedure that I know of. The other option is carry it to term, cross our fingers that everything goes well, and then spend the next twenty years raising another kid."

Marcus has been watching the ground as he walks, but he looks up then. "What are the risks?"

"To which. The abortion? Or trying to keep a baby alive amid all _this_?" Abby keeps her voice clear, but she's starting to feel the panic come back. They're barely surviving as it is without adding infants to the mix.

"To you," Marcus clarifies, which surprises her.

They walk a little farther while Abby thinks, really lets herself think about it. "They're both risky. For different reasons. Our medical supplies are far from ideal for the abortion, and carrying to term means more time for things to go wrong. Plus I'm nearly twenty years older than I was the last time I did this."

"But there were no problems back then? With Clarke?"

"No." Abby shakes her head. "I was twenty-four and healthy. We had experienced doctors and clean facilities with the basic tools in case of an emergency. Our worst problem on the Ark, outside of genetics, was vitamins and nutrition, even with double rations."

"I wouldn't say that's a problem that's gone away," Marcus says softly, and then they're both thinking about the rapidly dwindling stores they have, the lean nights when the cooks stretch the soup. Lincoln says the snow will be melting in another couple of weeks, and in a month or so they'll be able to hunt again. They're already on rations now, trying to make what they managed to pull together last.

Abby stops and turns to look back at the rest of the camp. Their small existence writ large with the remains of Alpha station still sticking in to the sky. "We're not the only ones down here," she says. "It's not our responsibility to repopulate the human race."

"I'll support you, whatever you decide," Marcus says, which is about the least helpful thing he could say, putting it all back on her.

"But?" Abby turns to him pointedly. He's watching her now, shoes forgotten, and she sees all his care for her -- all his love -- is that what it is? -- written on his face. "This is your child, too, we're talking about."

She catches him off guard with that. Marcus goes very still, his gaze catching on her like an animal in a trap for a moment before his very carefully cultivated mask of disinterest hides it. His gaze drifts back over camp, to the fence, the forest, back to Abby for a moment, away and then back again with an uncomfortable resolve.

"I've never considered having children. I never wanted them up there, and down here, there's just so much else to do. We're already struggling so much. I don't know that having a kid down here would be any better than on the Ark."

"So you don't want it," Abby says.

"Do you?" he asks in return, his eyes going wide again.

"I don't know," Abby says impatiently. She hates that she doesn't know, and hates that he seems to think she has all the answers here. Hates that he's surprised she might want to keep it. "I don't want it but I don't not want it, either," she says, which clearly doesn't help explain things because now he frowns.

"Abby," he starts, and she just knows that a rational argument is on the other side of his confusion.

"It's here now," she interrupts, trying to explain. "Life, or at least a potential life. We can't pretend otherwise and just abort it and go back as if it never happened. We have to think about this."

"I'm not suggesting that we do anything without thinking about it," he says, frustrated. "I'm _trying_ to think about it. And I'm not suggesting that you have to do anything you don't want. I just . . ." He stops like the words disappeared and he can't catch them, his mouth opening a few times as he searches for more. He looks at her helplessly, and that's when Abby realizes he is so much farther out in orbit about this than she is.

Of the two of them, she's the one who is going to have to hold it together, and the thought is abruptly infuriating because she's the one who's probably pregnant after all.

"Maybe each of us should think about it a little longer on our own," she says in her calmest doctor voice. 

Marcus pulls himself together, nodding. "Right, right. Figure out what's best for all of us." He jerks his head toward the rest of camp.

"Figure out what's best for _you and me_ ," Abby says, annoyed again. "We're the ones who'd be raising this kid. Unless you want out," she adds as his spooked expression gives birth to a whole new fear.

He doesn't deny it right away, and Abby suddenly feels like everything is veering in a direction headed for a cliff.

"I don't even know where to start with a baby," Marcus says.

"Forget the baby for a minute and start with me. Are you in this with me or not? I know we haven't really talked about this, or us and what we think we're doing together." She stops, afraid she's gone too far and scared him right over that edge.

"I'm with you," Marcus says with a fierce intensity. "I just don't know if I can do a baby, too."

Abby doesn't know if that makes her feel better about it or not.

~*~

Abby wouldn't say anything changed between them. They'd been sharing quarters since they got the kids back, sleeping side-by-side on a narrow pallet they'd finally made out of young tree branches and leaves covered by one of their blankets. It wasn't much more comfortable than the floor, but at least they were off the cold titanium.

Something in the air had shifted, the drop in temperature as low gray clouds rolled in setting off an ache in Abby's recovering femur that had her off-balance throughout the day and utterly exhausted by the time she got the door to their room closed behind her. Marcus was still making the rounds as he usually did before bed. It gave Abby a precious few minutes to give into the ghost of pain, let her face scrunch, the tears form, and the soft cry that had been building all day loose from her throat.

What she hated most about being Chancellor was the calm and strength she had to project. Winter was practically upon them, and faith that they would make it through was going to be half the battle.

But for five minutes, Abby could give in to self-pity and wallow in how much her god-damned leg _hurt_.

She got herself down on the pallet somehow, trying to contain her gasp at the sudden stab of fire that shot down the nerves of her leg. She closed her eyes to breathe through it -- in, two, three, out, two, three.

Too late she heard the door latch open, then suddenly Marcus was there. Their eyes met, and for a second they were frozen in time. Abby had both her hands clasped around her upper thigh above the healing wound, and she didn't have the reserves to even try to hide how much it hurt.

"What's wrong?" he asked, closing the door behind him and crouching in front of her. His hands hovered, not sure where to touch. "Should I get Jackson?"

"Nothing he can help with. We don't have pain killers. It'll pass." Each phrase was clipped, and Abby reminded herself to breathe. 

"What can I do?" he asked.

"Nothing. Just." Abby didn't have words. She should have. It wasn't like she hadn't been dealing with the pain all day, but Marcus was right there, earnestly looking right at her, seeing past the Chancellor mask she wore. She didn't know she'd reached out a hand toward him until he grabbed it, squeezing tight. Suddenly, Abby wasn't alone. The tears threatened again for no good reason, but she didn't let go of his hand, and after a minute, the acute pain in her leg passed once more into a dull ache.

"Here." Marcus's free hand found her shoulder and eased her back until she was lying on the uneven pallet. He let go of her hand long enough to take her boots off. Then he shed his own and his jacket and crawled over her to put himself between her and the wall. "Come here," he said, gently helping her shift so she lay against him, the heat of his body soaking into her back, her side where his arm curled around her. He held her close, steady. Keeping her feet on the deck.

Abby had to close her eyes when she felt his lips press against her hair. She hoped he didn't notice when her tears fell.

~*~

"Hey." Clarke finds Abby in the mess area later and takes the seat across from her. Abby sets down one of their few remaining working tablets full of supply lists that are depressing enough to be a good distraction. They're going to have to trade with the grounders. That's the only way forward Abby can see.

Clarke has brought her lunch of soup with her and she merely smiles before blowing across the top. Abby folds her hands over the table in front of her and regards her daughter for a moment. Clarke never eats with her at random.

"You're about as subtle as a rock, you know," Abby says.

"We don't have to talk if you don't want to," Clarke tells her. "I was just curious how it went with Kane."

"Fine." Abby picks her tablet back up and thumbs the screen back on. She has to be careful with the battery since it's been overcast so much lately.

"Uh huh." Clarke doesn't believe her, but Abby doesn't care. It's none of her business. She pages to the next screen, but the sound of Clarke slurping her soup only heightens the feeling that Abby should be explaining herself. It's that kind of silence. Abby can't believe that this is the second time in as many days that Clarke has made her feel like she's the child here.

She resists looking up, but says briskly, "We had a conversation about it this morning and we both decided to take a little time to think things through."

"He freaked."

This time Abby sets the tablet down definitively and gives her daughter a look meant to convey this-is-none-of-your-business-young-lady. Of course, Clarke has been immune to all of Abby's looks for a while now; she doesn't know why she expected anything different.

At least Clarke has the good grace to shrug, half an apology on her face. "Bellamy said he looked freaked when he joined the work party going to the woods."

Abby wonders whether Clarke had gone out or Bellamy had come in to relay that little piece of information, but it hardly matters. The two of them are practically telepathic most days. Either way, Abby finds herself letting out a breath, a little relieved that Clarke knows. A little touched that she's come to check up on her old mom.

Since she'd come back, Clarke and Abby have managed to rebuild some of their relationship. The occasional dinner together, staying up late talking together, working in the medical tent together. There's a hesitancy between them that hadn't been there when Clarke went into Lockup, and Abby doesn't know if it's from the whole year of separation or the metamorphosis her daughter has gone through on the ground. She's had to get to know her all over again, and it's been hard trying to break the patterns of a lifetime. 

But maybe that's good here. Maybe here and now, Clarke can be the friend Abby so desperately needs to talk to.

She sighs again and rubs her hands over her face, wondering where to start. "He said he doesn't know what to do with a baby."

"That's it?"

"Well, there's the rest of our people to consider, too," Abby adds looking up and letting out another breath. "Babies are a lot of work. And there are a lot of unknowns down here. The time and energy it takes to run this place," Abby shook her head. 

Clarke nods like she knows what she's talking about, and, well, Abby supposes she does. 

"What do you want to do?" Clarke asks.

"I don't know. I don't know that I can see myself raising another kid." As she says it, the words settle into a half formed thought that's been in the back of her mind. "You're all grown up. Our people are my work now. I don't know if I'm ready to give that up."

"You don't have to give it up," Clarke says. "You worked when I was small."

"That was easy compared to this," Abby points out. When she'd had Clarke, she'd only been a doctor with a reduced daily shift for the first year. And she'd had a husband who was with her one hundred percent. She's not sure she has that with Marcus. "And that's assuming I'd make it through the pregnancy."

"You would. Jackson and I won't let you -"

"Clarke," Abby gently interrupts because she knows better than they do that doctors are not gods. "You won't be able to control everything."

Clarke presses her lips together, the steely determination she's grown into on the ground staring back at Abby. It's overwhelming to being on the other side of Clarke willing to move heaven and Earth to save her. Especially when they both already know its cost. Despite the death left behind them, Abby can't help but also feel her daughter's overwhelming love that underpins everything she does.

In a moment of clarity, Abby knows that if she does go through with this, and something does happen to her, Clarke will be here for Abby and her sibling the whole way. It's more a relief than she can say, even though it does little to budge the fear in the choice before her. But it's enough to ease the weight, just a little.

~*~

"You idiot! You did it wrong!"

"I did exactly what you told me to do! Look, you said cut here, here, and here -"

"I said notch. Notch! Not cut all the way through!"

Bellamy gave Raven a flat, frustrated glare. Raven had her hands on her cocked hips, fiery and indignant as she pointed out his screwup.

Half the camp was watching them fight. The little crew of teenage tree choppers stood around nervously with their homemade axes watching the two of them, while anyone within earshot stopped what they were doing to look up. Bellamy's project to build a free standing structure out of felled trees had begun weeks ago, taking far longer -- and ending up far more dangerous -- than anyone had expected. Now, when they finally had enough lumber to start putting a structure together, they'd hit another road block.

Abby watched from just outside the medical tent, drawn outside like everyone else by Raven's shouting. She didn't go over, letting them argue it out instead. Bellamy could handle Raven, and Raven could handle him. They were already putting their heads together to figure out how to salvage the mess they'd made.

Marcus came to stand beside her, eyes on the spectacle as he crossed his arms over his chest. "Trouble in paradise?"

"Always," Abby replied, jerking her eyes away from the way his jacket stretched around his shoulders. His sheer physical presence had been distracting her lately. Ever since the night she'd fallen asleep in his arms, it was like she'd grown a sixth sense awareness of his body, which was equal parts exciting and annoying. 

Hoping he didn't notice, she asked, "Are you here to watch them or did you need something?"

"The scrap crew finished clearing out another section of the station. I was wondering if you wanted to come with me to see what they found."

Reflexively, Abby glanced up at the hulk of Alpha that stuck into the air. The station had crashed sideways into the ground, leaving a lot of potential materials in the damaged structure above. Sinclair had been sending teams of the nimblest people they could find to climb up to look for useful materials -- and remove anything that might fall on someone's head. That was a day that didn't need repeating either. Sinclair's crews had been systematically clearing what they could, and so far there had only been two accidents that resulted in minor injuries. Bellamy's wood chopping crew had suffered worse damage.

She hadn't heard the shift bell yet -- a piece of sheet metal they'd rigged up as a gong -- but when she opened her mouth to tell Marcus he'd have to wait, it rang out, a low, shimmering tone. 

"Well," she said instead. "I guess we just need to wait for Jackson to show up."

A few minutes later the two of them were walking side-by-side to the backside of Alpha where the scrap yard was set up. Abby had to remind herself to keep a little distance between them when her shoulder kept bumping into Marcus's. He gave her a curious look the first time, wondering what she wanted, and Abby muttered, "Sorry." The second time he kind of smiled at her while Abby tried not to roll her eyes at herself as she smiled back.

They rounded the corner where the carefully and not-so-carefully salvaged remains of their space station were laid out in large piles on the ground. Sheet metal, doors, and what damaged pieces of titanium and aluminum they could safely cut from the hull were in stack after stack in the short distance to the fence, waist or sometimes shoulder high. Someone had found a set of intact storage drawers that were now filled with nuts, bolts, screws, and an odd assortments of tools designed for working with a mostly metal structure. Insulation and thermal blanketing were piled inside a make-shift lean-to against the bulk of Alpha in an attempt to keep the rain off. Sinclair had ordered all the electronics boxes, as well as electrical cabling and personal electronics to one of the storage rooms inside to better salvage what they could. The solar cells that survived the crash landing were propped up in as much shelter as they could be in too, unprepared for the harshest elements Earth could throw at them but too big to take up space inside.

Since the shift had changed, the scrap crew wasn't there anymore, no doubt motivated to go get dinner. But Marcus knew where they'd left their most recent haul for sorting. Abby followed him between the stacks of sheet metal, most of it torn, scorched, or twisted from reentry. They'd been lucky they'd made it down in as good shape as they did.

"Hey, I'm supposed to be working," someone said up ahead and out of sight.

"You already worked. Now it's time to not-work," a second someone replied.

Abby and Marcus stopped walking and looked at each other. Abby opened her mouth to ask, but the undeniable sounds of kissing stopped her. She almost laughed, not quite believing it. The scrap heap had become the camp make-out spot. Actually it wasn't that bad a spot for privacy; the part of Abby that had snuck off with boys when she was a teenager had to give them credit. 

"You," kiss, "should be," kiss, "working," kiss, "too," said the first person, his voice on the tip of recognition. Beside her, Marcus arched an eyebrow in what could only be described as faux outrage. Abby had to actually stifle her laugh this time. Then she, like Marcus, schooled her features into a disapproving frown. This was going to be fun.

They rounded the corner to find two boys wrapped up in each other, seated on and against one of the uneven stacks.

Abby crossed her arms, a mirror of Marcus. He cleared his throat and said, "Gentlemen."

The boys sprang apart, one of them -- Monty -- tripped over his own feet and onto the ground. Nathan was a little more graceful, making it to his feet and dodging the small pile of equipment at their feet. Both of them stared at Abby and Marcus wide-eyed for a full five seconds before pulling what was left of their dignity about them.

"Chancellor, Commander," Nathan said, straightening up as Monty got to his feet, brushing dirt off himself. At least they'd both been fully clothed. Monty could barely meet their eyes.

"I understand you both should be working," Abby said, enjoying the boys' embarrassed shuffling. "What brings you to the scrap yard?"

She didn't miss the way Nathan shuffled again, in front of the equipment they'd collected.

"Uh, you know," he said, gesturing toward Monty, who was glaring at him now. "There's not a lot of privacy around."

"And that?" Marcus pointed at the small pile.

"That's what we were here for. For engineering," Monty said hastily. "Wick needed parts for the water pump system, you can ask him. We weren't - It was just - Then, you know . . ." He trailed off, leaving his incoherent sentence to die a strangled death. It took all of Abby's self control to keep her stern disapproving expression on her face. She was pretty sure she'd know if Wick were working on a water pump. Though, she'd give them the benefit of the doubt; he could be.

"Well then, you'd better be on your way back to your work assignments," she said before Marcus called them on it. But he, like, her didn't seem inclined to punish them for stealing when all they were picking over were the non-essential parts left in the open, or for making time with each other.

The two of them recognized the reprieve for what it was and hastily gathered their things and beat a retreat. Abby waited till they were almost to the next stack over, when she called out to them. "One last thing," she said, and they froze. "I'll expect to see both of you after dinner tonight to discuss safe sex options now that we're on the ground. We don't have all the supplies we used to on the Ark."

From the looks on the boys' faces, if they could die from embarrassment, they would have. They practically melted away after that.

For a moment after they were gone, Abby and Marcus shared another look, before they both broke out in laughter. It was several minutes before Abby could calm down enough to catch her breath.

"I can't believe you told them to report for the Talk," Marcus said. "My money's on them not showing up."

"Their faces. I haven't gotten a reaction like that in months." Abby brought the back of her hand to her mouth and just breathed for a second.

Marcus chuckled again, his eyes sparkling with mirth when he looked at her. Completely and unabashedly happy for once, his face was transformed into something so beautiful Abby felt her breath catch. His hair fell around his shoulders in dark waves, tossed by the wind and a day of work. His cheeks were rosy red in the cold air, and his smile lit up his face. Abby wanted to kiss it.

She couldn't say when the moment shifted, when laughter gave way to tension so thick Abby took a half step forward without even thinking about it. The smile on Marcus's face eased into a warm expression that met her halfway. His lips were chapped from weeks of hard living. 

The kiss didn't last long, a meeting of cool lips that didn't go further, but held nearly two months of propping each other up, comfort and friendship. They'd been hurtling toward this moment since they made it back from Mount Weather, and now, Abby stepped back from the kiss feeling the warmth of it down to her toes.

The grin on Marcus's face didn't fade. "What was that for?" he asked, his fingers reaching out to lightly touch her cheek.

Abby leaned into his touch, joy filling her even as her inner imp couldn't resist saying, "It wouldn't be fair if only the teenagers got to make out back here."

Marcus laughed, and then leaned into kiss her again. "What was it they said? We should be working?"

"All right, all right," Abby laughed, stepping back and looping her arm through his. "Let's go see what they found."

~*~

That evening Abby finds herself back on the hill overlooking the crew out in the woods again. She doesn't think about much in particular, her mind turning over and over Clarke's question of what she wants, her own questions of what would be best for their small community, what would be best for the child. She doesn't come to any conclusions, and her butt freezes on the rock she's sitting on, but Abby doesn't move. 

At the end of the work day, Marcus eventually finds her and sits beside her on the rock. Immediately she feels the heat of his body press up against her side and she relaxes into it. They've been lovers for nearly two months now, since their first kiss, and Abby doesn't regret any of it.

After they sit for a minute or so in silence, she says, "Some days I look out there and feel like I'm in a dream or a book. I have to remember that I can touch the grass and trees. Then I look at our camp and it feels real again. But still new."

Marcus leans back on his hands, smelling of fresh sap. "When I was a boy, tending the Tree, I used to imagine being the person in the future who came down and planted it into the ground and watched it grow tall. But I could only imagine it as tall as the ceiling."

Abby smiles at the memory of Marcus as a child, so serious and dedicated. When they were in primary school she, like almost everyone else, had been a little jealous his big important job to tend the Tree.

"Everything seems so much bigger from the ground," she says softly. The trees, the forest, the sky. The thousands upon thousands of grounders who'd camped outside their gates waiting to overrun them. "Much too big for us to fit here, I think sometimes."

"And the other times?" Marcus asks.

"The other times I look at what we're doing. Everyday we have work crews go out to chop wood, build shelters, find and make food. We're tearing down what's left of the Ark and building a new home here. We're building our future, and all I can think is that we can't give up. We have to survive. Our people survived ninety-seven years in space -- where people were never meant to live. We can survive our own planet." 

Marcus doesn't say anything right away, and Abby feels her words settle around them, like they're poised in the air. Waiting. Words bottle up in her throat, trying to follow up on the feeling that hasn't quite coalesced into thought yet.

"Clarke, at lunch, asked me what I wanted. I'm still not sure I know," Abby says eventually, feeling her way to what she wants to say. "But what I do know is that we've lost so many people to get where we are. We've sacrificed. We've fought a war. My daughter, my little girl, lost a part of her soul she'll never get back. I don't want that for any of the children who grow up here."

"The Ark wasn't kinder," Marcus says quietly. "How many orphans did we make?"

Abby closes her eyes because she knows the answer, and it hurts every time she thinks of it. "If you or I get hurt or killed, this child could be an orphan. There's a pretty good chance of that."

"But you want to do it anyway," Marcus says, and Abby finally looks over at him. His eyes are searching hers, but with no lingering trace of his earlier freakout. 

She hadn't been thinking that, not explicitly, but now that the words are out there she doesn't deny them. "I want to stop making decisions out of fear. I want to believe in our future here." She licks her lips and lets out a breath.

"That doesn't mean you have to be the one to go through with this," Marcus says. 

"I know, and trust me when I think about going through pregnancy again, I'm not sure it's worth it. Childbirth, your body tricks you into thinking is worth every bit of pain," Abby flashes him a quick grin. She can't even remember what that was like before Clarke was in her arms. "But I dunno, there's something hopeful about new life. About a new life that I made with _you_. I can't regret that."

His smile is small, and though he ducks his head, he can't hide how her comment affects him. It warms Abby and she leans into his side. He sits up a little so he can wrap one of his arms around her.

"What do you think?" she asks, unsure of his answer but no longer afraid of it. 

"I think I am completely out my depth. But that seems to be the new normal down here," he says. "The thought of going through with this scares the shit out of me, but," he says before Abby can interrupt, "if you're in, I'm in." He lets out a breath that takes his tension with it. "It's going to take me a while to get used to the idea."

Abby takes his hand. "You have nine months," she says dryly.

He huffs a laugh, squeezing her shoulders affectionately. 

"I'm glad you knocked on my door," she says after a minute. "Since Jake, I never thought I'd fall in love again, have a partner. But that's what I have in you."

Marcus tilts his head toward hers till their foreheads meet and they're breathing each other's air. "I don't know when it happened, but I fell in love with you, too. Long before I knocked on your door."

Abby kisses him, and it feels familiar and new in the wake of words finally spoken.

~*~

Marcus was kissing her before the door even closed behind them. Ever since that first brush of lips in the scrap yard, Abby hadn't been able to keep her hands off of him. Linked arms, bumping shoulders, tapping knees at dinner. They didn't stay out late to look at the stars tonight. The searing looks Marcus sent her, his eyes flickering over her body like they normally didn't, her own lingering on his hands, his chest, his lips. He was kissing her before the door even closed behind them, and Abby leaned her weight into him so it slammed behind his back.

Her fingers tangled in his hair that brushed his collar. His hands held her by her waist, fingers slipping under cloth to touch skin where her shirt and jacket rode up, a burning point of contact. Pressed against him, he was a strong line of heat from her lips to her knees, and all Abby wanted to do was bask in his warmth. That spot between her legs ached with wanting to drink him in. 

Marcus nibbled at her bottom lip, his tongue stroking against her, hot, wet, demanding, like he was trying to drink in her very presence. Abby couldn't get enough of it, tilting her head to get closer, as if she could will them into one. He was her strength, her right hand, the one person she knew had her back even when he was arguing with her.

"Abby," he gasped, robbed of breath when they broke apart. Abby's chest was heaving. He gently guided her backwards, and yes, toward what passed for a bed. That was good. Careful of her still healing leg, she shuffled backwards slowly, using his shoulders for balance. 

Marcus held her eyes the whole way. They shimmered with happiness, matching his smile. When he looked at her, he saw her, and Abby felt like the center of the universe.

The spell was broken when confronted with the uncomfortable logistics of trying to undress someone wearing four layers of clothes while balancing on one good and one not so good appendage. Marcus caught her before she toppled over, and they were both laughing.

"Okay. Okay," Abby shook her head, grinning up at him. "Each their own clothes. Race you." 

Marcus laughed, but nevertheless shed his jacket and pulled both of his shirts up and over his head at the same time. "Just be careful of your leg," he said from inside the cloth.

Abby had gotten her jacket off but was promptly distracted by the expanse of bare torso exposed in front of her. Weeks of working outside, Marcus was one line of lean muscle. She wanted to touch, so she did, lightly running her fingers up his sides to his dusky nipples, startling Marcus as he reappeared, tossing his shirts to the floor. Meeting his eyes and holding them, Abby placed a kiss on his sternum.

"I think I'm winning," Marcus said, breathless.

"I think I don't care," Abby said.

His smile was captivating as his hands found the hem of her shirt. "You're lucky I'm always willing to lend a helping hand." He helped her pull it off, and Abby shivered from the cool air. Or maybe it was the way Marcus was looking at her.

His lips found her jaw and pressed light kisses up to her ear, finding that spot just behind that made Abby's knees weak. His hands pressed around her ribcage, thumbs barely brushing the undersides of her breasts, sending another shiver through her. She turned her head so she could capture his mouth, and what had slowed suddenly became fiery again. Marcus's hands were everywhere, and soon her bra followed her shirt to the floor. Abby gently dragged her nails up his sides, eliciting a moan, and then before he could recover she was dragging him down with her to the bed.

The rest of their clothes came off in short order. Abby couldn't get enough of Marcus, her tongue stroking against his as he settled on top of her. She wanted everything -- his touch, his heat, his weight. It had been so long since Abby had had this, felt on fire, felt alive from her toes to her hair, need pooling between her thighs as he eased between them. She smoothed her hand down his side again, urging him on as she made room.

"Marcus," she gasped when he slid inside. He felt perfect, and more perfect when he started moving. 

Abby's eyes were half-lidded as she just let herself feel all the places he filled her up inside. Marcus, panting now, had his eyes open, slightly wide, like he couldn't believe they were here. He looked at Abby like she was the center of the universe, and she couldn't help but smile, feeling like he was the light that guided her home as he pushed closer and closer, filling her up, taking her home, burning her up in all the best ways.

"Oh, oh!" Marcus's breath was hot on her face as his eyes finally fluttered closed, and Abby was so close, pushing herself that last bit farther, until the crests of pleasure broke over her. Her hips stuttered of their own will as the wave crashed, sending shocks of pure bliss from her head to her toes. She clutched at Marcus, holding him close as his arms wrapped tightly around her in return.

For a moment the two of them just held each other and breathed.

After a minute, Marcus shifted so he wasn't lying entirely on her. "Abby," he whispered.

She tightened her arms around him. He was everywhere she wanted to be. "Don't go," she said.

"I'm right here." He shifted again without fully letting go until they were comfortable. Abby found the blanket with her free hand and pulled it over them.

~*~

"So." Clarke sits down across from them at breakfast a week later. They'd taken a few days after their talk to be sure. Marcus was still nervous, but after Abby spent an evening after dinner going through all the supplies and tools in the medical tent, she was relieved he was on board with keeping the baby. They'd told Clarke and Jackson yesterday.

"So what?" Abby asks. She's got a mug of tea in front of her, forgoing solids till the queasiness passes in a few hours. Clarke's face is all business as she looks from Abby to Marcus and back.

"So, we need to start thinking about logistics for when the baby comes -"

"I think we have a little time to make arrangements -"

"And you," Clarke goes on undeterred, zeroing in on Marcus, "when are you going to marry my mom?"

"What?" Marcus is as surprised as Abby at the question, but Clarke simply raises her eyebrows, waiting for an answer.

Abby has the distinct feeling of being on the wrong side of the conversation again. "Clarke," she starts, but Marcus lays a hand on her arm, his expression turning thoughtful.

"No, she's right. We should get married. Make it official," he says.

"Oh." Abby stills, surprised again, with no idea what to say. But Marcus is grinning at her with his beautiful smile and then he's kissing her, and Clarke is clearing her throat a second later with an eye-roll and a half-smile on her face too.

"No breaking her heart," Clarke says, when they turn back to her. Someone at another table wolf-whistles, and it's then that Abby realizes they're the center of attention of half the camp. She's not sure she cares.

"Never," Marcus says, looking at Abby with the weight of a promise behind it. "Not if I can help it. Or yours," he adds, turning to Clarke, "or the baby's." A note of wonder enters his voice. "We're really doing this?"

"We really are," Abby threads their fingers together and squeezes. Her heart suddenly feels three sizes too big for her chest, unable to hold all the love she has for Clarke, for Marcus, for the life inside of her. They're really doing this, bringing a new life into the world, here on Earth, on the ground, where their survival is as much about holding onto hope as anything. Abby looks at her daughter and the man she loves -- they've come through so much, on so much faith, and never would she have dreamed that they'd end up here. Hope, she decides, is a good thing to hold on to.

~*~  
~*~

**Author's Note:**

> I'm [tassosss](http://tassosss.tumblr.com/) on tumblr and I run [the100](the100.dreamwidth.org) community on Dreamwidth if anyone is interested in stopping by.


End file.
